ATTICUS RETOOLED
Aaron Sorkin on the challenge of adapting Harper Lee’s novel — by turning an icon into a man
WHEN Aaron Sorkin was asked to adapt Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” for the stage, he was thrilled — and terrified.
“Ever have the experience of being glad you’ve been invited to a party, but not wanting to go to the party?” Sorkin tells The Post. “There’s nothing I like more than writing a play. But what could I do but make the thing less than what it could have been?”
“To Kill a Mockingbird” opens Thursday, with a re- ported advance sale of nearly $16 million. It has more money in the bank than any musical this season.
Jeff Daniels plays Atticus Finch, the small-town Southern lawyer who defends a black man wrongly accused of rape.
Sorkin and producer Scott Rudin say they had Daniels in mind from the start, much to the actor’s surprise.
“I’ve been waiting for you to call to tell me Tom Hanks is doing it,” he told Rudin.
Once Sorkin got over his initial fear of adapting a great American novel, he came up with a first draft he now calls “unremarkable.”
He faithfully adapted scenes from the book until he got to the famous trial scene, a genre with which the writer of “A Few Good Men” felt “most comfortable.”
Rudin read the draft and gave Sorkin a note that changed everything.
“Atticus can’t be Atticus for the entire play,” the note said. “He’s got to be
come Atticus.” Atticus is a great American hero, a paragon of integrity in the book and the 1962 movie, which starred Gregory Peck.
In both the book and Horton Foote’s screenplay, he’s seen through the eyes of his adoring children, Jem and Scout.
But a hero who doesn’t change in the course of a play can come across as wooden on the stage. So Sorkin tore up his first draft and set about making his hero more complex.
“In the book, Atticus has all the answers,” says Sorkin. “He’s carved in marble. In the play, his fundamental belief in the goodness in everyone would have to be challenged.”
Racial politics have undergone a sea change since the 1950s, when Lee wrote “Mockingbird.” (It was published in 1960.) Sorkin was determined that his version reflect that, and so he gave significant stage time to a minor character in the book — Calpurnia, Atticus’ African-American maid.
The alterations didn’t go down well with Lee’s estate, which nearly derailed the production this year with a lawsuit. The estate claimed Sorkin’s script “deviated” too much from the book.
Rudin countersued. He demanded $10 million from the estate for scaring away investors. And in a flourish worthy of David Merrick, the legendary Broadway producer who also loved a fight, Rudin offered to stage a performance of Sorkin’s adaptation in court, with stars Daniels, Celia KeenanBolger (Scout) and LaTanya Richardson Jackson (Calpurnia).
“It would have been the first play ever to open and close in the Southern District Court,” Rudin says, laughing.
But the dispute was set- tled before scalpers could snap up seats in the courtroom.
Rudin can’t disclose the terms, but Sorkin is pleased.
“I was concerned we would end up with a play that was agreed upon by lawyers,” the writer says. “But that didn’t happen. And I was concerned that the play itself would become compromised, and that didn’t happen.”
“What we have is exactly what we set out to do,” Rudin says. “I would not say it was an uncomplicated road — or an inexpensive one — but we got there. It has all the values and morals of Harper Lee’s book. But this is Aaron’s version of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ ”
You can hear Michael Riedel weekdays on “Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning” on WOR radio 710.